Hello,
I posted this in the ukulele forum where I’ve been posting pics in a build thread, but I thought I would share here too because it could be useful for any small bodied instrument, not just ukulele.
I press frets using a Jaws2 and a Nemo1. The Nemo1 was born out of this thread from our friend Dave Farmer.
fixing Jaws 2
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink/topic? ... source=app
He’s not around on the OLF as much anymore but there are a ton of gems in his previous posts.
If the big guy is Jaws2 then this has to be Nemo1. SM should sell this and give me royalties.
As I mentioned this idea came from a post where David Farmer replaced the knock off Bessey clamp on the Jaws2 with a real one. Making the press screw into something compatible with the SM clamping caul is pretty straight forward. What I’m doing here is making a second clamp from the smallest Bessey clamp. This let’s me fret the last few frets in a small sound hole like a uke.
First I have to remove the pin in the handle. I filed the pin head flat so that I can drill it out easier on the drill press. I used some scraps to try to square it up.
Pop the cap off with pliers.
I used an 1/8” dowel to encourage the pin out with a hammer.
Pull out the press screw with pliers.
This is what we are trying to replicate. The pin is 6.25mm with a slot cut that is 4.5mm. The slot is where the plastic set screw goes on the SM caul.
Drilled a hole in the waste board so I can sink the press screw down and cut the slot using the files edge.
Cut off the tip that was originally there with a hacksaw and file it flat in the drill press.
Looks good.
I used steel pop rivets to put the handle back on.
I also trim the nose off just a bit so that it can get closer to the neck block. This helps with getting to reach as many frets as possible. I learned about the stubby Jaws2 from Dave and Hesh in their fretting class.
I use a cut down version of the SM clamping caul so it can go in and out of the smaller sound hole.
It’s a little fiddly to get it all set up through the sound hole but once set up it works great!
Hope that is useful.
Brad
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